How to eat at the Pre Catalan in Paris

This is my all time story of something wonderful happening on vacation. It happened in Paris and don't ever bad mouth Parisians or the French to me. Here's why:

It happened in August 2001 in the last summer of innocence before the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

After 2 home exchanges back to back in Hamburg and Nancy, AlteCocker booked an apartment in Paris for a week so that she could meet up with DaughterCocker, then working in Germany.

The plan was to do one of those once in a lifetime things and go eat at a starred Michelin restaurant rather than AlteCocker's usual much cheaper Parisian bistro. It was designed as a "thank you" for a family in Paris that had repeatedly put up DaughterCocker in Paris when she studied in France and worked in Germany.

The Pre Catalan has 3 stars now, but when the Cockers went, it had just one. AlteCocker cannot imagine how it improved since then because it was the best meal I had ever eaten as of 2001 and that assessment has not changed in the past 12 years.

AlteCocker knew she was about to dump more cash for lunch than her airfare had cost (Ah, for the days of yesteryear, when AlteCocker did not have to pay well over $1,000 to get her ass over to Europe and back for the summer!). At the last minute the guests could not come and called the restaurant to cancel. Financially, AlteCocker heaved a sigh of relief, but, to tell the truth, she was a bit disappointed and wanted to meet DaughterCocker's Parisian hosts.

When asked by the maitre d' what we were going to do, AlteCocker shrugged and said, "We're here; we'll eat." And, eat they did.

We went to the restaurant for lunch because dinner, which would have been way out of our income tax bracket, would have cost much more. We were presented with very complicated menus in French. Despite about 10 years of language study on and off, French menus in the fancy schmancy places are another problem. Even if they are accurately translated (and sometimes the translations are hilarious), the food is different. Some of it just doesn't exist in North America. So, the Cockers took the easy way out and ordered 2 menus. We were asked if we wanted the 5 course menu or the 7 course menu. AlteCocker told them that 5 courses would be enough.

I can't recall all the things we ate but they were a mix of things vaguely familiar and things that were not--such as pigeon. We ate for 2 hours a la francaise.

Soon a couple walked into an adjacent table. It was a very elderly man and a much younger woman (OK, don't laugh yet, read the rest of the story). We got in a conversation with them. They clearly knew about ordering in such places as opposed to the amateur Cockers. They did not order the menu.

The elderly man began to tell stories of being a General in the Resistance with Charles de Gaulle. To tell the truth, and because she was fed a lot of outright lies about his wartime adventures by her father, AlteCocker believed none of it. Since the man was so elderly, however, AlteCocker was polite and listened to the stories. The entire conversation occurred in French. It was mostly between AlteCocker and the elderly man.

Dessert came and it was the best dessert either of the Cockers had ever eaten. The couple got something else--which was probably better but the Cockers were a couple of amateurs. Totally sated, AlteCocker asked for the check. There was none. The elderly gentleman had paid the bill. He then asked how we were going to go back to Paris. I said we would either walk the 3 miles to the Metro or call a taxi. He said he had a cab and would drop us off at the closest Metro stop. And he did.

When he did, I took a photo of him and his companion with my daughter. I also got his name.

After AlteCocker and DaughterCocker were alone, AlteCocker informed DaughterCocker that the taxi in which we had ridden back to the Metro had been waiting outside for the elderly gentleman and his friend throughout the meal. DaughterCocker, who tends to absentmindedness, asked AlteCocker how she knew that. AlteCocker replied, "The meter was at $85 when we got into the taxi." In her next life, AlteCocker plans to live like that.

The following day, DaughterCocker went back to Germany and work and AlteCocker went to have dinner with friends. When AlteCocker related the story of the lunch at the Pre Catalan, she was told, "No one would believe that story." Of course, AlteCocker would not have believed it either if it hadn't happened to her. She asked about the man, whose name was Pierre de Benouville and was told all the stories at the lunch were true. He was a right wing politician who managed to have friends everywhere--from all sides. In fact he was the only one outside the family of Francois Mitterand who was permitted to use the familiar "tu" form with him. Yes, Mitterand was a socialist, but a French socialist--which has very little to do with socialism/communism in Eastern Europe.

Of course, in view of what M. de Benouville did for AlteCocker, a thank you was required. When she arrived home AlteCocker repaired to the local gourmet store and purchased a selection of gourmet foods from Virginia to send to him and sent off a package having gotten his address from her friend in Paris; postage for the gift cost more, of course, than the gift itself. AlteCocker wrote him a note to let him know that the package was coming. He wrote back and told me--get this--that Americans were so generous and it was a tradition AlteCocker had "honored" by sending him the package. That letter is framed and has a permanent place on the wall in my house.

When the package arrived AlteCocker got another note. M. de Benouville said "It was as if Christmas had come early." AlteCocker then realized that she had never sent him the photo AlteCocker had taken after the memorable lunch. So she sent it off.

Several days later AlteCocker received a note from her French friend in Paris--the one who had tracked M. de Benouville down for her. When she opened the envelope, a pile of newsprint fell out. AlteCocker knew immediately what it meant; she didn't have to read the newsprint--and she cried. M. de Benouville had died. A couple of weeks afterward she received a note from the woman who had had lunch with M. de Benouville. She was his secretary and helped to care for him as he had trouble doing simple tasks such as cutting his food at the Pre Catalan.

AlteCocker is tired of Americans bad mouthing French people. The problems come from the fact that both sides come from different places culturally and talk past one another. When French people let you into their hearts, however, they can be the nicest people in the world. Anytime anyone badmouths the French, AlteCocker tells her story of lunch at the Pre Catalan. Occasionally, here in Washington, DC, AlteCocker will buy a French person a drink at a bar if the occasion arises and do it in honor of the memory of what Pierre de Benouville did for her at the Pre Catalan just before everything changed.